I often have the most interesting trains of thought while running along the gorgeous trail by my house. I find myself
lost in the activity of running. Often I
have my ear buds thumping some instrumental, high tempo tunes to keep me at a
pace that I enjoy. Lost in thoughts and daydreams.
Recently, as I am trotting along, lost in thought and the
buzz of my endorphin rush, stepping and breathing steadily, I find myself grinding
to a sudden halt and gasping. Less than
two feet in front of me, on the trail, is a small snake enjoying the patch of
sunshine. BLAH! Don’t like snakes. So, I stand there, suddenly very aware of my
deep breathing and stillness. I’m kind of aggravated with the snake for barging
in on my rosy path. I guess I need to go around or over the dang thing if I
want to continue along. So, I take a deep breath, look around me irrationally
to make sure I’m not surrounded by an army of little snakes, then take a giant
stride over the area in front of the little bugger and keep on tromping along
the path. But my run has been affected. I can’t seem to stop scanning the ground
ahead as I run, just waiting for the next intruder to appear. I really don’t like snakes. Yet, that is all I keep thinking about. Is that a twig up there? Or a snake?
Is that a breeze blowing those leaves up there, or a snake?
I go all the way to my turn around point and head back
before I realize something that strikes me as profound. As I head back, I decide to stop looking at
the ground and just enjoy the surroundings.
And, I was almost blown away by the magnitude of the glory surrounding
me! The sun shining through the golden
leaves and glimmering on the trickling creek water. The incredible blue sky stretched out brightly
into infinity, only interrupted by occasional fluffs of white clouds. Wow. I
even became more aware of the smells as I looked around and took it all in. The smell of leaves, grass, damp earth,
weeds, trees, and the dirt on the path became more robust. I saw birds landing and perching on
branches. A whole world of goodness and
beauty was right in front of me, yet I had been missing it all because I was
wasting my time scanning the ground for another snake.
The really dumb thing is that this was a little gardener
snake that couldn’t even really hurt me.
It’s not like it was a rattler that could pose a threat to me. It was simply a snake, and that made me
uncomfortable.
I couldn’t help but make a correlation. Do we do this with people? Aren’t there
people whose behavior or choices or sins make us uncomfortable? If we learn something about a person that is disappointing
or maybe even shocking to us, don’t we sometimes stop in our tracks and stare
in fear at that thing we are scared of? That
thing that makes them different from us, or that thing that we would never
choose to do, or that thing that we thank God we don’t struggle with, or that
thing that we do struggle with but hope and pray that no one ever knows! And, don’t we risk missing out on the beauty
and magnitude of glory that makes up that person because we are staring at them
waiting to see that snake. We are often
so fearful of that snake that we can’t even learn to lift up our eyes and
appreciate the person as a whole. It’s
so sad. What’s worse is when we irrationally look
around to see if there is an army of little snakes that are threatening us and
begin to focus on the possibility of a snake appearing, instead of enjoying
what is really there.
As a follower of Jesus, I am convicted all the time of my
tendency to judge. And I find myself in
prayer all the time asking God to help me see people how He sees them; as a
perfect creation worth God dying for!
It seems to me that much of the judging is rooted in
fear. And when we are afraid of
something, we don’t want to deal with it.
So, we either try to avoid the thing, or try to destroy the thing, or
maybe just gather with others who are afraid of the same thing and commiserate
about how awful the thing is! And we also may feel aggravated that the thing
would barge in on our rosy little path!
I think about some of the things that so many Christians
seem to be afraid of. Instead of finding
a way to love people, they seem determined to focus on the snakes! If they encounter
a person who proclaims their belief in a different world religion, or is an atheist,
they stop suddenly in their tracks, gasp for air, and focus on that snake in
fear and find it very hard to see the magnitude of the beauty of that whole
person. If they encounter a person who
is attracted to someone of the same sex, they stop suddenly in their tracks,
gasp for air, look at that trait as a snake and find it so hard to lift up
their heads and see the magnitude of the beauty of that whole person. If they encounter a person who struggles with
addiction, that addiction becomes the snake.
It could be any number of things!!
I could go on and on. The truth
is that some of the snakes we see really are scary or dangerous. But, usually, they aren’t at all! We just don’t like them and they make us
uncomfortable. I'm not trying to point the finger to "those Christians". I often find the "snakes" in others and struggle to lift up my head to the big picture!
I have had several more encounters with snakes on the trail
since that day. I still don’t like snakes. But I refuse to run the trail with my head
down, scanning the ground for that possible encounter while missing the glory
of my surroundings. I refuse to be
irrational and feel threatened by a gardener snake simply because it makes me
uncomfortable. And I refuse be
irrational and feel threatened because something about another person makes me uncomfortable. I’m not perfect. I continue to fear and to judge and to ask
for God’s help. But I hope I am moving
in the right direction.
